I jsut started runnning a e1 game and my players were pretty excited. Since no one had played the game before I allowed them to change there characters after the first session. So they got a favor for the game and then went to work......

It seems that my players are a bit of power gamers and redid there characters to the max....I checked them over and could not find any issue but they were awesome.

Example one player made a Somo wrestler with growth and delection as his only powers he maxed out the powers and his attack and def. Needless to say when he was huge he gets a +8 to grappling....so he pretty much grappled everything in site. Then with his deflect he would deflect/reflect everything. It was a little crazy and they pretty much mowed throw everything I I had. It seems most of my plares max out damage save (either by amazing save or protection) and attack/defense.

Do other people see this...it seems the system is easy broken if heros focus on a small amount of powers......just wondering

Why don't you max out the NPC villians in return? In all seriousness, when a character such as your sumo guy does max out in select ares, it leaves him open in others. Why don't you have a simple mind controller come up and control the sumo guy, and turn him on the party. Eassentially, a pretty simple trick, and would effectively take care of the sumo guy, and another player (the one that is being attacked by the controlled sumo guy), by just one simple guy that doesn't lay a finger on them.

How much grappling can sumo guy do if the NPC is intangible? Gaseous? Liquid?

Ever consider trying another giant deflector type guy against your sumo? A long drawn out battle where there is no advantage, unless you want there to be.

Maxing out isn't really all that effective, since as a GM you can do the exact same thing, except you have the ability to make them NPC even higher Power levels.

Ephesians6:11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

I know I also can max everything out, it seems to me that what happens is it ends up being sort of an arms race. I am still new to this so I am working on it. I was thinking of doing exactly what you said. I was going to use things like slick,paralysis and mind control against him.
I don't know it was just interesting, beause with all his size, super strength and attack he was getting grapple checks in the 40's with an level 11 character (11 for base attack, 11 for super strenth with growth, and 8 for being huge). His base grapple started at 30!!! that seemed a little over the top to me. Then his damage bonus when grappling for damage was 26, so it ended up I couldn't break the grapple unless he rolled a one and he just grappled for damage until I failed my save and crushed me. the other thing that I thought was wied is there was no penalty to dex when he was huge ( weighing like 32000 pounds).

just vent ing I guess, do other people see there campaings running like this..where hero's just end up being stat blocks or am I the only lucky GM.

csteinhoff wrote:I know I also can max everything out, it seems to me that what happens is it ends up being sort of an arms race. I am still new to this so I am working on it. I was thinking of doing exactly what you said. I was going to use things like slick,paralysis and mind control against him.I don't know it was just interesting, beause with all his size, super strength and attack he was getting grapple checks in the 40's with an level 11 character (11 for base attack, 11 for super strenth with growth, and 8 for being huge). His base grapple started at 30!!! that seemed a little over the top to me. Then his damage bonus when grappling for damage was 26, so it ended up I couldn't break the grapple unless he rolled a one and he just grappled for damage until I failed my save and crushed me. the other thing that I thought was wied is there was no penalty to dex when he was huge ( weighing like 32000 pounds).

just vent ing I guess, do other people see there campaings running like this..where hero's just end up being stat blocks or am I the only lucky GM.

If you think of the characters as stat blocks that's all they will be. Don't focus on the combat instead focus on the plot. The minion rules establish that in M&M knocking down opponents shouldn't be a big concern as long as there are machinations in the background. If you really have a problem with the high bonuses people have then you could switch to 2e where trade-offs and new PL limit rules help assure characters can fill a niche while still being vulnerable. But I don't think this is a mechanical problem so much as a need for your group to get comfortable with the system.

One man's hobo booze is another man's fiiiine sippin' wine.

Oh, and by the way, I don't use drawbacks in my game, just complications.

Well first off super strength doesn't give you a bonus to you attack bonus which includes grapples (unless it's a house rule) so his attack bonus would be BAB=11 and for being huge=8 which brings it down to a 19 attack bonus. may not sound like much but that 11 makes a big difference. Also the bigger he is the harder it is for him to hit and the easyer it is to get hit check page 126 table 8-1 that'll give you the rules for it and that makes your sumo problem a little smaller (no pun intended). It also seems you sumo guy doesn't have a normal strength modifier. Does he have a 10 strength? If so following comic book logic he would be rather small because normaly super strength affects how you look very little but that's just nit picking on my part.
One of the things I have all my players do is give me a reason for why you have the powers you do IF THEY DON'T MAKE SENSE. Like "I have super strength, the ability to control time, energy blasts, and I can comprehend any language." Ok maybe two of those MAYBE but the point is while the game does make you spend points to get it you can still Min-Max and while certain heros do that most have only one set of powers that make sense. So all the people that have a max damage save would need to give me a reason unless their powers support it"I'm a book worm and have never been in a fight but I am 10th PL and have a 10 BAB, 10 Def, and a Damage save of 10."
Now if that's not an issue in your game then great. The other only thing you can do to get them to stop min & maxing is make the game more plot heavy. I have a game going where the heros started 20th PL but because it's plot heavy and they went POWERS POWERS POWERS they are having a tougher time then if they would have buffed up some skills.

P.S. A good villian may not have lots of powers but may be cunning enough to get the heros to steal, for them and all kinds of other stuff without even knowing they're doing wrong, not to mention they almost always know the heros weaknesses (sorry about being a little long winded)

you are right I was wrong abotu the super strength nut he does have a 20 strength so it would bump it to a 24 bonus. I think I will throw some other things at the group..like skill checks and things like that. You are correct I have onlty have had two sessions about 8 hours total where we were focusing on learning combat. I think I will send out a note lettting them know I am goignt o start the real campaign and give them a chance to adjust there characters, if they don't then I will see what happens

thanks for the posts it is good to here from others....I have restored my evil villian inside ..muh ha ha ha!!!!